


In Your Hands

by LORBEERPRINZ



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Drama, F/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, lonlissa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 07:55:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15166112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LORBEERPRINZ/pseuds/LORBEERPRINZ
Summary: He had never seen beings like these before. Well, he kind of had, because they all shared a face with her, and it seemed like they knew that it meant he couldn’t strike them as easily as he normally did away with his foes…





	In Your Hands

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is a fic I wrote for a friend's birthday quite a while ago, I kinda forgot to upload it here, orz  
> I have to admit while I had a rough concept in mind very early, I wasn’t really sure where to go with it and I somehow feel this reflects within the fic… Anyway, if somebody wonders, the creatures appearing here are actually a game mechanic from Fire Emblem Warriors, it’s obviously nothing that is canon to Awakening, but I borrowed it anyway x’D  
> It's a little rough around the edges, but I hope you enjoy anyway!

It was weird. They looked like her, they moved like her, but it was obvious they weren’t her. For a moment Lon’qu thought he was caught in yet another one of his awful dreams, his mind playing a new trick on him this time by replacing the endless circle of Ke’ri’s death with somebody else. But the swing of a heavy axe he avoided just in time to only receive a very minor cut across the arm and the stinging pain it produced clearly told him he was wide awake.  
The figures before him were completely devoid of color and closed in on him. Three, four, five… he wasn’t sure how many there actually were, the dark creatures seemed to grow in numbers every time he blinked.  
It wasn’t quite the fact that they looked like living beings that unnerved them, that they were clearly different from any Risen he had encountered so far, it wasn’t even really the fact that they were imitating actual people. Rather, what made him hesitate was them imitating one specific person, all of them. They all looked and moved the same.  
They all looked and moved like _ her _ .

They had surrounded him, closing in without much of a sound. They didn’t seem to be able to speak, might not even actually breathe.  
When another swing of an axe came, instincts taught in long and painful training made Lon’qu reach for his sword, bringing it down to clash against the other weapon, knocking it out of the shadowy creature’s hands. It flew into another one of these things, almost disemboweled it, but no blood or damage was visible. The being just collapsed on the spot and disappeared into thin air.  
Lon’qu stared at where the creature had been for just a moment, but the others around him left him no time to compute what had just happened. The now weaponless one hurried to pick up its axe and Lon’qu probably should have gone after it to strike when it was at its most vulnerable.  
But he couldn’t.  
No matter how colorless these creatures appeared, how lifeless and inhuman they were altogether, he was still looking at _her_ back bending down to pick up the heavy weapon. It was _her_ hair flying around as almost countless more of them went at him one after the other, all of them being thrown back by swift strikes that were more meant for defense rather than killing. His mind was unable to follow with a counterattack for the moment, his body wouldn’t move more than needed to defend itself.  
His instincts seemed to have switched sides.  
It was _her_ face he had to see when bringing his sword over them.  
And it was smiling at him just as much as she was, the only difference was that these dark creatures did so while swinging and throwing their axes at him. The myrmidon hauled the sword around in attempts that appeared to be more about knocking the weapons out of these shadowy girls’ hands than anything else, but he knew it was impossible to go on like this forever. No matter the face, no matter the eyes, he had to bring them down.

“Lon’qu!!”

He flew around to see one more of those faces, but it was different. It was real. It was really her.  
Yellow dress and golden hair standing in stark contrast to the shadows that imitated her appearance down to the last pore, but lacked everything that made her who she really was.  
Lissa froze upon the display in front of her, instinctively fastened her grip on the axe she was carrying with her. She stared at the dark creatures, then scowled at them. She knew beings like these, had encountered them a while ago, but these appeared to be at least a little different. Instead of mindlessly attacking, they were now circling Lon’qu, keeping a good distance to him to avoid getting hit very easily. When attacking, they did so one after the other to not accidentally hit each other with the big blades of their heavy axes. Instead of honing in on their target all at once like the ones Lissa had met and fought before, they apparently preferred to wear out their victim over time.  
Not that it made the situation any better.

“What the hell? What are those things doing here?!”  
The pack of shadows turned around to face her, a few of them started moving towards the girl. Immediately, Lon’qu drew his sword to take down one of them from behind, guts wrenching around inside of him upon doing so. Like before, the being didn’t bleed or even react to the attack, it just sunk down and vanished. Perhaps the most unnerving thing was that these creatures never made a single sound.  
The myrmidon looked at Lissa with a thousand questions in his stare.

“I’ve seen those shadows before”, she explained, “in Aytolis! They’re made with magic, if we take down their creator, they’ll weaken and eventually disappear.”  
She swung her axe at another one of them approaching her, batting no apparent eyelash at the fact that they resembled her in every way possible. Another one attacked her from the side, taking her by surprise. Lissa dodged the blow just in time with a shriek, tumbled and fell. Before the shadow could launch a follow-up, however, Lon’qu was there, shoving it out of the way. The only thing to be heard was the sound of the axe’s metal blade falling to the stone floor when the shadow hit the ground.  
For a moment, Lon’qu wondered himself why he had reacted this way.  
It should be fine killing these beings, right? They weren’t even really alive.  
Lissa found back to her feet.  
“Okay, Lon’qu”, she began, “I’ll go tell Chrom and Robin what’s going on - you can take those, right? Make them pay for stealing my face!”  
And with this, she rushed off.

Finding Chrom and Robin took Lissa longer than she would have liked and both of them were shocked to hear the art of creating shadows had somehow found its way to Ylisse. Or maybe it had always been there, Robin mused, they were extremely close to the Plegian border, after all. Everyone agreed, however, that the mage in control of them had to be dealt with immediately so that they weren’t overrun by shadows imitating Lissa.  
The only good thing about this, the young cleric thought in a quiet moment before heading off again, was that they had chosen to imitate her, so those shadows couldn’t be too strong overall. Lon’qu could deal with them very well, she was sure.  
For a moment, she pondered returning to Lon’qu to help him out against the horde of shadows she had last seen him with, even though she knew he had a much better chance of taking them on all at once than she had. But at the same time, she couldn’t just leave him alone.  
Before she could be on her way back to where she had come from, however, she heard Robin call for her, asking for assistance on charging on the mage that was responsible for producing the shadows that had begun to overrun the whole operation. Cordelia flew by, informing the young princess that three more shadows were making their way through the trees and ruins they were stuck in for this battle. They could make out the source of these shadows if they observed where they were coming from, Robin argued and once again asked Lissa for assistance. She wasn’t entirely sure what Robin needed her for, she was very sure the tactician could take on a mage alone just as well, but she complied. Cordelia led the way from above while the two at the ground made sure she wasn’t disturbed by any stray archers going after her.

Finally, they found the person responsible for the creation of the shadows and the hooded figure was definitely working hard at controlling all of the beings he had conjured. They caught him just when he was about to create yet another one.  
“Stop right there”, Lissa went at him despite Robin’s protests, “I won’t let you use my face for this any longer! Do you even know what it feels like to have creepy copies of yourself running around attacking your friends?!” She readied her axe and charged at him.  
The mage dodged just in time, Robin warned the cleric to not lose herself to her anger too much, she had to fight like always. Before the tactician could even finish her sentence, the enemy mage readied a counterattack, throwing balls of fire at Lissa, who squealed and shrieked trying to avoid them. She was hit anyway, trying to brush the burn off, to ignore the mage’s triumphant grin. The hooded figure snapped his fingers, mumbled something. Both Lissa and Robin stopped their charge, braced themselves for whatever was meant to come now.  
But nothing happened.  
“It’s our chance!!”  
Lissa swung again, hit for a deep cut, not caring about the blood sprouting from it and landing on her dress. These stains could just be washed out. But the damage this person did with his summoned shadows might not be repairable depending on what they did and where. He had to die. Swiftly, Lissa stepped out of the puddle of blood that formed under her boots.  
“Good job”, Robin sighed, “that only leaves the shadows he created. If they work the same way like in Aytolis, that is. Do you have any idea where they went?”  
“I saw a bunch of them with Lon’qu, he’ll be fine.”  
Robin agreed.

Lon’qu, too, thought he was fine, but he also knew that would not be the case forever. The shadowy creatures were unnerving and a seemingly endless wave of them approached him to attack. Handling their attacks was not the general issue either, but he knew that the longer they would go on, the more exhausted he would become until they would eventually manage to overpower him. They didn’t breathe, they were not humans, just went through motions imitating a human being, they would not stop attacking until eliminated.  
The myrmidon had no count of how many of them he had already defeated, but it felt like hundreds. And they just wouldn’t stop coming.  
Lon’qu used the length of his sword to keep the shadows at distance, trying to give himself room to breathe for at least a moment. He noticed that no more of them came around the corner, at least for now the constantly renewing barrage of axe girls was over. But there were still many of them left.

And something about them suddenly changed.  
They seemed to become less… shadowy. They gained color. Their boots began producing actual sounds scratching over the ground while circling the swordfighter. He thought he could see their chests raising and falling.  
With every second, they became more and more human, more and more like _her_.  
Lon’qu clenched his sword. He had to end this quickly.  
He swung and hit one of them, luckily it hadn’t also gained the ability to bleed. But the shadow yelped, perfectly matching the pitch of Lissa herself. Lon’qu swallowed. The other ones around him closed in, one managed to slip past the rest and rose the massive axe over his head. Now making actual sounds, the shadows’ attacks were easier to notice and Lon’qu flew around to confront the attacker and taking her - no, _it_ \- down.  
He stopped before the impact.  
This shadow, this creature, it was smiling at him, smiling the same bright smile framed by a halo of blonde. It had a giant axe up, ready to behead him at any time, and was smiling. He heard a giggle. It was so familiar. A hasty jump back from the axe’s impact range made him collide with another shadow, which was not dark anymore at all, but rather as bright and colorful as the one it was based on. It looked at him with big, green eyes, _her_ eyes. He hated it, hated the look, hated how he subconsciously reacted to it. And these beings knew, he was sure. The only saving grace was that these shadows’ eyes still looked quite shadow-like, not as bright and full of life as the ones he knew so well.  
But that helped nothing at all.  
He stared back at the shadow, the being’s smile slowly turning into a more devilish grin. All of them did this, like on command. Their expressions were all the same. More axes rose.

“Lon’qu…”  
The dark-haired thought he had heard a whisper, wasn’t sure if it had really happened. He flung around, none of the inhuman girls circling him seemed to have spoken. He didn’t even know if they could really speak.  
“Lon’qu…?”  
“Lon’qu.”  
“Lon’qu…”  
“Lon...qu…”  
“Lon’qu…!”

The voices overwhelmed him, became louder and louder in his head despite being whispers. With every moment, it was harder to tell them apart until they all combined into one loud, oppressing wave of noises. They drowned out everything else, almost hurt from inside his head.  
No matter where he looked, the shadows clothed in white and yellow were there. He saw nothing else, heard nothing else.  
One or two times he blinked the figures seemed to transform into somebody else. But no matter which one of the two they appeared as, it didn’t make it any better. The pain inside his skull grew, became unbearable. They weren’t Ke’ri. They weren’t Lissa.  
They were inhuman creatures.  
But the longer they were here the more they seemed like her. Which one of the two again? It became impossible for Lon’qu to tell. Everything turned into one big wave of noise and pain. He wanted to throw up. He felt the exhaustion, not painful, but his movement became slower, legs weaker. He could hardly stand, let alone raise his sword.  
Even though he shouldn’t be that tired from this little bit of fighting yet.  
The shadows closed in even more. It was impossible to make out who of them was saying what. But that didn’t matter, the voices, the noises, they just all gave off one big wave of the same thing over and over again. There was nothing else that would reach his mind.  
“Lon’qu!!”  
The only other thing he heard at this point was his own screams.

Lissa cursed herself for the fact that she had not been paying attention to the surroundings on this narrow and confusing battlefield as much as she should probably have had. Finding her way back from the remote corner the shadow-producing mage had hidden in took her what felt like ages. On the way, she confronted yet another shadow of herself, shocked to see it had suddenly gained color, a phenomenon she had never seen before.  
But that did not mean anything, as she had built up enough anger at the situation to take down the magical being quickly. Without their master, they were hardly a threat anyway.  
She darted around a corner she thought she’d seen before and yes, finally, there he was.  
Lissa was relieved to see that the shadows that had circled Lon’qu were gone. She approached him, who seemed to be not moving from his sitting position, carefully and froze for a second when she noticed his wounds and blood. She rushed to his side, producing her trusty staff immediately.  
“Lon’qu!!”  
The myrmidon flew around, sword in his grip. Lissa managed to get away right in the moment, the tip of Lon’qu’s blade ending right before her nose. She gulped, felt cold sweat running down her back. The myrmidon stared at her, his face too full of sweat and cuts. Slowly, the cleric raised her staff.  
“Don’t worry, Lon’qu, it’s me… the real one. I’m not sure how else to convince you, but… maybe it’ll work…?”  
The staff’s core glowed lightly, emitting the soothing warmth that healing staffs were known for, enfolding around the two of them. Slowly, Lon’qu lowered his sword, felt the wounds across his body slowly disappear, the pain getting less by the moment. His headache died down, the last remains of the noises in his mind ebbed off, exhaustion feeling not that terrible anymore. Finally, he was able to think straight again.  
He dropped the sword. Looking at her above him, on his knees, he tried to say something, anything, but no words came out of his mouth. His mind was still blank. For a moment, he was not sure if this was really Lissa he was seeing, every time he blinked her face shifted. It became dark, indistinguishable from any other face, it disappeared. Then it seemed like Ke’ri’s. Only after a few deep breaths, the world seemed to return to its normal state.  
The pressure in his head was gone.

Lissa sighed in relief, went down to her knees. For a moment, she was hesitant to reach out for the myrmidon in front of her, was unsure what was going on in his mind right now. But she knew whatever had happened, it had shaken him. She wasn’t used to seeing him this way, wounded in both flesh and heart, exhausted to the very depths of his mind, the one she had always thought could shrug off any challenge with ease.  
In the end, Lon’qu was just another normal person.  
The young cleric sighed again, reaching out for Lon’qu in a tight embrace. He stiffened under her touch, held his breath for a moment. And with every passing second, life returned to his body, the pictures in his head, these darkened Lissas and Ke’ris, dissolved one by one. Maybe all that had happened had just been a weird, terrible daydream, an illusion created by a particularly skilled mage.  
“I’m sorry, Lon’qu”, he heard Lissa whisper, her voice so soothing, so different from the frightful giggles the shadows had produced in a desperate attempt to appear like a real person.  
“I should have helped you out back there. I should have stayed with you. I’m sorry…”  
The myrmidon didn’t know what to say. No matter what his mind began to come up with, it was immediately discarded again, unable to form a useful sentence, even less able to produce any phones that would lead to words. He was so tired.

For a moment, as he opened his eyes and peeked out between Lissa’s warm embrace, he thought they were still there, the creatures, the figures. They shifted across his field of vision with every blink he made, then disappeared.  
Sometimes, the weren’t even the shadows from before. Sometimes, they very briefly were somebody else. That somebody else seemed to approach him, the almost invisible face carrying a warm smile. He blinked again, it was gone, another blink and it was back, right in front of him. He knew this smile.  
“It’s alright now”, it seemed to whisper, “you’re in good hands.”  
It disappeared again. Lon’qu waited a few moments, blinked a few more times, but none of these illusions returned. He pushed himself up, feeling he exhaustion and pain in every bone and muscle of his body. Lissa tried to help himself up.  
“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Lon’qu looked back at the former battlefield, no traces of the beings left he had fought. Had any of this really happened? The worried expression on Lissa’s face surely seemed to confirm it. But at the same time, somewhere back within his mind, there was a small wish that it had not happened after all; even though they had just been magical illusions, he had still taken down so many instances of her.  
Luckily, however, the real one was still safe and sound. Her frown began to turn into a cautious smile.  
“Lon’qu…?”  
He sighed.  
“It’s alright. I’m in good hands.”


End file.
